The Monday after the wedding, we set off for our honeymoon in Cancun, Mexico. If you remember, we really didn't care where we went, but like everyone says, you have to go right away or you never end up going.
We unfortunately don't have a full-service airport here in Manhattan. It does fly daily to Dallas and Chicago, but the flight times were just awful to get us into Cancun at a reasonable time. Thus, we flew out of Kansas City and stopped over in Houston. It made for a rather long day with a two hour drive, arriving two hours early, a two hour flight followed by a three hour layover and finally another two hour flight. But we did arrive at our hotel, Krystal Cancun, by dinner time and started cashing in on our all-inclusive resort!
The view from our balcony
We didn't make any reservations or plans other than the hotel and airfare. With all of the wedding planning, we decided that the honeymoon was going to be unplanned and spontaneous. I did look up some places to have some ideas, but it was so nice to leave it up to the moment to decide what we wanted to do, if we wanted to do something.
The hotel had plently of day beds and cabanas, so we found ourselves sitting around outside with frozen drinks in hand quite often. Since I am a textbook dermatological nightmare, we spent lots of time in the shade and under a layer of sunscreen!
I also got to drink my favorite Mexican beer that I cannot find in the United States. After I graduated from college and spent a month living in Chihuahua City, MX, I was hooked on this guy!
We went to the alternative US embassy, Wal-mart, by bus. The Cancun bus system was pretty awesome. For 9 pesos you could get a ride around the hotel zone or downtown, equaling about 75 cents.
On our second to last day, we went to this park called Xplor, about 30 miles south of Cancun. In our hotel, there were some travel companies there each day. We made friends with an Alberto and we bought our park tickets through him. For an extra $15 each, his company came and picked us up with their shuttle and took us and another two couples to the park and back home. We also used them to get to and from the airport which was much cheaper than a taxi and just as easy!
Xplor was cool because it was in the heart of the jungle, just off the coastline and was based around some caves that were discovered.
Ziplining (this was the ending of one of the circuits)
Paddleboats through the underground river (with Adam doing all the work!)
and ATVing through the jungle
There was also a river that you could swim through the caves, but I didn't bring my camera for that one! Overall, we had a lot of fun and was great to do something more adventurous than sit on the beach and drink alcohol all day! We definitely slept in the shuttle on the ride back to the hotel!
On our last full day in Cancun, we decided to go parasailing. We went back to Alberto to see if he could hook us up and he did not disappoint. It was nice because we could pay him with a credit card and he could give us a prepaid voucher that we could take to the vendor. We waited on the beach for awhile and then we were taxied out to the actual boat with a smaller boat. And up we went...what a view as my dad would say.
Bridesmaid H recommended parasailing and I'm so glad that we went. We were up in the air for about 15 minutes and it was so neat and calming. I'm not a huge fan of heights, but it was very manageable. We took off from the boat and landed back on there as well so the only time we got wet was getting into the little "taxi" boat.
Before our last day was up, we did visit the Cancun Maya Museum.
And that was basically our 6 day/5 night trip to Cancun, Mexico. We took lots of naps, relaxed, did some exploring, spoke some Spanish, and ate/drank a whole bunch. We both were really happy with the choice we made and we even left a few things to do in the event that we ever come back.
The only downside? The food. I wouldn't call myself or Adam picky eaters, but we were really disappointed with the food that our hotel served. I didn't really have high expectations going in, but the main hotel restaurant served the same buffet foods everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner(respectively) and had a rather limited selection. We did order room service once, but it wasn't super fresh either. On our last day, we found a burger stand at the far edge of the hotel that had the most amazing cheeseburgers and fresh french fries, but it was a little late by then (and completely Americanized)! Since it was all-inclusive, we didn't want to eat out anywhere else because we were already paying for our foods.
The hotel did have a dine-out option that we did use for two of the evenings. You can pick between three different restaurants and order off a very limited menu (like 5 items - cheeseburgers, caesar salad, sandwich, etc) but tip and drinks weren't included so you felt obligated to order a drink or dessert to help the waiter out. We ventured to Senor Frog's and the Hard Rock Cafe. Hard Rock definitely won the competition because it didn't have people coming by your table asking to take your picture or make you a balloon hat for a fee!
And my advice for future honeymooners -
Take lots of pictures
Milk the fact that it's your honeymoon as much as possible
Don't expect everyone to speak English (something that really surprised me...most of the guests in our hotel were other Spanish-speaking families)
Take time to relax and just enjoy each other's company
Take naps
Be informed about where you are going, but don't micromanage your trip
Enjoy the first few days of married life!
Where did you go/are planning to go for your honeymoon? Any other advice or suggestions to add?
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